Tips

Soaking the almonds is optional, but you get a much better result if you include this step. Not only does soaking help to release extra nutrients from the almonds, but it makes the milk creamier and more delicious, and you get a slightly higher yield as well. The salt helps to make the soaking even more effective.

You can use fewer almonds if you like, which will make your almonds go further, but the milk will taste a bit watery, and not nearly as nice in my opinion.

If you leave out the second lot of water, you can make a thicker, richer almond milk, almost like almond cream. Yum.

You can make raw nut milk with all kinds of nuts, including brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts and more. Raw vegan almond milk is a great place to start, but the principles are pretty much the same for any nut milk – blend and strain – so have a play with it.

The reason you only add part of the water to begin with, is to help the almonds to blend properly. If you add all of the water at the start, it makes it harder for the blender to break down the almonds, and your milk may not be as smooth and creamy.

The dates are used to help sweeten the milk. You can use your preferred natural sweetener (e.g. agave nectar, coconut nectar, maple syrup, honey), although the dates add a wonderful depth to the flavour, and are a whole food, which I prefer to use when I can.

Your tastebuds may change over time, so start with a slightly sweeter milk if need be (add more dates if you prefer), and reduce them as you get used to the nutty flavour of the almond milk.

The same goes for the vanilla. When we started making this, the vanilla really helped us to adjust to the flavour of the almond milk. But these days, we leave out the vanilla entirely because it was starting to make it taste too sweet for us. Just go with what you like best.

Vanilla bean powder is just fresh vanilla beans air-dried and ground into a powder using a spice blender or coffee grinder. You can make your own or you can buy it from your local health food shop. If you can’t get your hands on any of this, just use 1 tsp of vanilla extract instead.

We use some ice in the second amount of water to keep the milk cool as it blends. Because you are blending your milk for a while, to make it extra smooth, you may find your milk heating up, especially if you’re using a high-speed blender like the Vitamix that we use. The last thing you want is your raw vegan almond milk over-heating and not being raw any more, so use some ice if you can.

You don’t have to strain your nut milk, but I highly recommend it. Not straining it would mean you don’t have leftover almond pulp to find uses for, but it does leave a grainy texture in the milk, which I don’t really enjoy. Straining it definitely helps your nut milk to resemble dairy milks more closely, which can make it easier to accept for some people.

You can buy nut milk bags online, at your local health food store, or you can make your own, using a square of muslin or swiss voile. You’ll find all kinds of uses for your nut milk bag, so it’s worth getting your hands on one. And frankly, it’s worth it just to be able to make almond milk.

We store our raw almond milk in the door of our fridge and find that it starts to turn on day 5, so make sure it doesn’t last that long.

Variations

This almond milk is a great alternative to soy milk, and tastes really great if you just like to drink milk straight from a glass.

My daughter loves it when I add a teaspoon of cacao powder and a drizzle of maple syrup to a cup of almond milk, so she can have chocolate cereal for breakfast.

You can add your favourite flavourings to this almond milk. Anything goes, so let yuour imagination run wild!

FAQs

Is almond milk raw?

Yes it is, if you make it yourself using almonds that are raw. Store-bought almond milk is generally not raw, as it is usually pasteurised before being bottled.

However, almond milk that is explicitly labelled as being raw, should be raw. You can always contact the manufacturer directly if you want confirmation.

It’s getting harder to find raw almonds these days, as many of them have been pasteurised.

However, pasteurisation only heats the outside of the almonds and does not cook them fully, so they’re still better than roasted almonds.

You can search online for suppliers of fully raw almonds, as there are still some suppliers offering unpasteurised almonds.

If you pre-soak your almonds, you also get access to more of the nutrients in your almond milk, making it “live” almond milk.

Is almond milk vegan?

Yes, it is, if you use my recipe (or something like it) to make your own almond milk.

Store-bought almond milk is generally vegan, but check the label for any animal-derived ingredients just to be 100% sure before you buy it.

My inspiration

When I decided to start exploring this whole “raw food thing”, I did my homework online (as I do), and found the two highest rated raw food cookbooks on Amazon, and bought them for myself for Christmas.

I wanted to know where you get your raw almonds, because although almonds are labeled raw. It is illegal to sell raw almonds in the store in the USA. They are pasteurized, but are allowed to be called raw! Do you have a direct distributor?

Worst case, if you can’t get your hands on truly raw almonds, remember that it’s about doing the best you can with what you have.

So what if your almonds have been steamed? OK, so they’re not technically 100% raw, but you’re making homemade, wholefood vegan milk with mostly-raw almonds, and that is HEAPS better than not doing it at all.

Or if you can’t come at that, perhaps you could find another variety of nut that you can get truly raw and make nut milk with those instead.

Every little thing that you can do in the direction you want to go adds up to better health and vitality. So decide what’s most important to you and do what works.

Sure you can peel the skins if you want to, but I imagine it would be kind of fiddly. And when you strain the milk, almost all of the tiny pieces of brown skin are caught in the leftover pulp anyway. But if you need to remove the skins, by all means go ahead. I’m not sure how you’d go about it, as it’s something I haven’t done before.

If you love removing the shells, then don’t skip it. Relaxing is good. I just don’t have the patience. And if your blender isn’t super-powerful, removing the skins would probably give you a smoother result anyway.

And yes, the salt is for the soaking stage, not for the final recipe, to help with the release of nutrients.

I’m interested in making my own, as I’ve ordered previously and thought it was a bit pricey.

My question is how many dates should I use? I understand it’s up to me for the sweetness level, but if I want to make it healthy (and balanced), any specific amount I should use? Because dates are really high in sugar

My focus has always been on enjoyment first and “healthiness” second, and I can’t give you a “right” amount of dates to use, because that assumes there is such a thing. There’s no right diet, only what’s right for you.

When we started making our almond milk, we used more dates, and as our tastebuds adjusted, we reduced the amount of dates. If you’re concerned about the sugar levels, then perhaps you could start with less (e.g. one date) and see if it’s sweet enough, or you could use an alternative sweetener, like stevia.

As for whether it will go off after the fourth day if you use pasteurised almonds, my guess is that it will, yes. Ultimately your milk is not sterile either way, so the same processes that make food go off will be at work in your milk regardless of whether your almonds are 100% raw or pasteurised.

How many calories, are in 250ml of the home made almond milk? I notice the unsweetened supermarket version claims 40calories per 250ml. Figure I can sort out how much they water it down to come up with a reasonable estimate of the Home made version’s protein, fat, carbohydrate content (ie if mine is 10 times the concentration of the supermarket version, then I could say the protein content is multiplied by 10 also). Its sort of hard to even imagine exactly what it is that is extracted (by way of nutrient content) by soaking and straining (eg. is all the protein extracted?). Yes, its almond milk, and its taste is absolutely beautiful, full & yummmmmmy …..however I am wondering about how much protein, carbs, fat, calories are extracted with the liquid & how much of them stay in the ‘almond meal’ left over. If the ‘almond meal’ is very high in cals &/or carbs I may have to shirk saving it for use in cooking if I am watching cals/carbs etc.

This is something I’ve wondered about myself, and honestly, I have no idea how much of the nutrient content of the almonds goes into the milk, and how much stays in the pulp.

There’s a few attempts out on the world wild web to calculate it, but the difficulty is that it depends on your ratio of almonds to water, how much of the pulp you extract and how likely each of the components are to remain in the milk. I think the only way to know for sure would be to make a batch and get it lab tested, but that would be kind of expensive!

Here’s an article you might like to read to see if it clears anything up for you:

I buy mine from a few places. My local organic greengrocer has biodynamic almonds (they’re in simple clear packaging with an orange label and are produced by the Biodynamic Research Institute in Powelltown), and I buy those sometimes.

I’m not too fussed about whether they’re 100% raw (ie not steam pasteurised), so I can’t tell you about that, but you might be able to contact the manufacturers and find out, if that’s important to you.

I buy almond milk because it tastes good, and an animal and stomach friendly beverage, and for the calcium. Buy the unsweetened 30 cal version. Have no idea how they make it. I’m thinking I’m just buying an almond flavored, vitamin fortified water. Thinking the almond “milk” doesn’t have any significant calcium in it for the amount of almonds in it and maybe a lot of the calcium is left behind in the pulp. So, should I not worry about whether homemade has calcium in it if I take a multi-vitamin and a calcium/vit d supplement. All so tricky to figure out.

Also, could homemade be frozen in daily portions so it wouldn’t turn?
thanks!

Almonds do have a reasonable amount of calcium in them, but often the almond milks you buy in the store have a lot less almonds in them than my recipe. So they don’t taste as creamy and they don’t have as much calcium.

I’m glad you’re finding those details helpful. I realised that those little tidbits were often the best parts of the cooking classes I’ve attended, so I wanted to give you as close to that experience as I could.

I used to use raw almonds and make my own almonds milk with my almond milk machine (the machine will heat up almonds and water and almonds milk will be ready in 20 mins. I need some websites saying “steamed almonds” during the pasteurised process will cause cancer because the almond good oils oxidation hence provide free radicals therefore harm the body. I wonder if I heat up my unpasteurised almonds in the machines will also cause the same effect as “pasteurised” almonds? Please let me know your thoughts on this. Thank you.

Firstly, how hot does your machine heat the milk to? Anything under 45°C (113°F) is still pretty raw. Pasteurised almonds have generally been heated to at least 65°C (149°F) and potentially as hot as 100°C (212°F), which is a LOT hotter.

Honestly, I think that claiming that pasteurised almonds cause cancer is a bit of overkill. Yes, it’s not ideal to heat oils. Yes, the wrong kinds of oils can increase oxidation in your body, which can contribute to cancer.

BUT, not eating animal products (by using almond milk instead), is going to make much more of a difference to your health. And the stress of worry can also affect your health, so try to do things that come easily and that you feel good about.

It’s all about balance, and doing everything you reasonably can to shift your body towards health. Reduce the amount of strain on your body, and feed it good food, and just take baby steps in the right direction whenever you can.

I just came across your website and find it very informational. Thank you for the delcious looking recipes. I’ve just started making my own almond milk and really love it. I see that in your directions you say to toss the water the almond soaked in. I’ve not been doing that, and I am wondering why you do. I thought that the water contained all the nutrients from the almonds that soaked out of it.

If you choose to presoak your almonds, then it’s usually to activate them a little and also to remove the enzyme inhibitors (phytic acid), both of which will maximise nutrient availability.

If you don’t throw away the water, then you’re adding back some of the enzyme inhibitors that you just soaked out of your almonds. You’re also adding back the salt, which we added to help remove the phytic acid, but which you may not want to add to your recipe.

You may lose a small amount of nutrients into the soak water that you discard, but not a great deal because the almonds are whole so reasonably self-contained, and this is more than outweighed by losing the phytic acid and gaining the nutrients from the almonds beginning to germinate (activate).

My favourite cookbooks

My favourite kitchen gadgets

Having the right gadgets has totally changed my experience in the kitchen.

High-speed blender

I use my Vitamix blender at least 2-3 times EVERY day. It's fast, so versatile and super quick and easy to clean. I couldn't live without mine. I absolutely love it!

Food processor

I use my powerful food processor three or four times a week, for making nut butters, desserts, sauces, burgers and more. It's great for large batches and dishes that need texture and just makes "cooking" so much faster.

Dehydrator

I use my 5-tray Excalibur dehydrator once or twice a week, for crackers, breads, biscuits, cakes or even just for thawing things. It does an awesome job and makes eating raw SO much easier.

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